Need Electrical Juice? Walk More!

How often do you have to charge your smartphone? I think I mentioned some time ago that ever since I switched to the iPhone 4, I have had to charge my mobile phone every day. Comparing this to the every other day (sometimes every three days) charging I had to do with my Nokia E63, it does seem excessive. However, if you think about what one normally does with the iPhone (not to mention 3G or Wi-Fi always on), the once a day charging system does make sense.

Having access to electrical juice is something that the modern person has to deal with on a daily basis. As such, researchers are also on the ball as to figuring out how to make batteries last longer and how to provide consumers with more power.

If researchers Tom Krupenkin and J. Ashley Taylor are successful, we just might have the perfect solution to this perpetual power problem. In a report they are publishing this week, the duo present the idea of harvesting energy from the normal activities of the average person. ((Source)) If you think about it, even the most sedentary of people do walk and move around regularly. I work at home, but I do walk down the stairs to take the trash down. I walk around at the malls. I sometimes – very rarely, admittedly – take a walk around the compound where I live. For people who work in “real” offices, the amount of walking involved is probably 10 times more!

Now what if the energy produced by walking and moving around can somehow be harvested and converted into electrical power? And what if this power can be utilized to charge the batteries of your mobile phone, your tablet, or your mp3 player? As you can already probably surmise, the possibilities of this kind of technology are endless.

Of course, theory is one thing and implementation another. There is a long road ahead of the researchers in order to make the concept a reality. Still, with the potential benefits being so huge, I will not be surprised if a lot of people/companies jump into studying this technology.

As for us, consumers, we’ll have more reason to get off our butts and move!